Indie dev loses 55,000 sales to Steam's two-hour refund policy — and gets review bombed for complaining

Solo developer Mateo Covic, who goes by Zoroarts, says his boat-paddling game Paddle Paddle Paddle has been refunded 55,000 times out of 262,000 copies sold — a 21% refund rate — because Steam's no-questions-asked policy lets players get their money back if they've played fewer than two hours within the first 14 days. The game sits at 89–90% positive reviews, meaning thousands of players who clearly enjoyed it still claimed refunds.

Covic designed Paddle Paddle Paddle — a short third-person co-op paddling adventure and his second game after 2023's Makis Adventure — with a target playtime of around 3.5 hours for the main level, plus a free demo level that takes roughly 40 minutes, putting total content at about four hours. The problem is that speedrunners and highly skilled players can blast through it in one to two hours, landing squarely inside the refund window. The game costs $5 at full price and has frequently been on sale for $3, yet Kotaku estimates that at an average price of $4 and after Steam's cut, the refunds represent roughly $154,000 in lost revenue. Covic says he can't even tell how many refunds were legitimate, since players can simply pick any reason from a dropdown without explanation. His proposed fix: display expected playtimes on store pages and remove "too short" as a valid refund reason when a game is transparently marketed as brief.

Steam's refund policy has been a flashpoint for short-game developers since Valve introduced it in 2015. It was designed to protect consumers from broken or misrepresented games, and for most titles the two-hour window is a reasonable trial period. But for games built around a single tight experience — walking sims, narrative adventures, compact platformers — the policy effectively lets players finish the product and return it. Valve has never publicly addressed calls to adjust the threshold for shorter games, and the platform takes a 30% cut regardless of whether a sale sticks.

After Covic posted his frustration on X on July 5, 2026, the backlash was swift and ugly. Many readers misread his complaint as a call to abolish refunds entirely, and Paddle Paddle Paddle's recent Steam reviews flipped from Very Positive to Mixed as a result of a review bomb. Covic clarified he is "100% pro refund" and only objects to players who leave glowing reviews and then claim refunds anyway, but the damage was done. He told GamesRadar+ he's now receiving more hateful DMs than ever and said it's been "a big learning opportunity" — he'll think twice before posting something similar in the future. Valve has not responded publicly; Kotaku says it has reached out for comment.